Thursday, January 10, 2013

Kitty Tails

As big of a cat person that I am, I have never owned a pure-breed or show cat. I am more of a rescue owner, so each of my kitties has a heart warming tale, or tail... behind them.

Sabrina is my pride and joy, so her story will be a lengthy one. My Mom and I were driving to the fabric store 10 Decembers ago when we saw a cage full of kittens on the side of the road. We doubled back immediately to scope out the litter. Huddled together in little clumps of fur sat a mother and her kittens. I immediately saw my pick, the little red and white runt I would name "Amber"... from Clueless, naturally. The sad part of this story is the litter was pretty malnourished and Amber did not make it past Winter. After crying for days and refusing to attend school, I thought about how thoughtless I was being. We had given Amber a warm and loving family for her short life, and for that I was very thankful.

I wanted to see if there were any other kittens from the same litter who were in need of a warm home to make it through the chilly weather. After rummaging through receipts and crumpled up business cards my mother found the owners number scribbled on the back of her check book. There happened to be one little grey ball of fluff left, still slumming it at the trailer park an hour outside of town. My Mother and I jumped in the car immediately and met the owner half way. For the first few weeks Sabrina would lay in my lap like a limp rag doll while she built up her strength. You would never know that Sabrina is trailer trash looking at her now, she has such a regal attitude and acts like such a lady always crossing her paws when she sits.

Cabunny received her name from her large bunny-like ears. My Mother picked her out of a litter that was brought to work one day and instantly fell in love. Cabunny was around for most of my childhood and I remember her being very selective to whom she would be-friend. For some reason, ever since I was a baby, Cabunny would act very motherly and protective towards me. I have fond memories of dressing her up in doll clothes and making her beds inside my forts. She was the best buddy a kid could ask for, and I think the main reason why I am a cat person today.

I do not remember much about Kaykee except for the fact that she was one of Cabunny's kittens. I will never forget how devastated my Mother was when we came home to find her run over by a car one night. I have an old black and white photograph of my Mom holding Kaykee that sits on my bookshelf, it is probably one of my favorite possessions.

My Dad had been wanting a cat of his own after being married to my Mother for a few years, a black cat to be exact. See, my mom has a favoritism towards calicos, and if you notice in the portraits, we have owned all calico cats with one exception, Toonces. Instead of an all over black cat, my Mother compromised and surprised my Dad with a black and white cat she found in an abandoned house. Toonces was brought home right before I was born and a lot of my baby videos feature a little mangy kitten running around really fast in the background. It always makes me laugh. She was named after the popular SNL skit "Toonces the Driving Cat" from the late 80's because my parents claimed she would run so fast it was like she was on wheels.

Lolita is our newest addition to the family, only half a year old. She is so frisky and quite the troublemaker. We have started calling her "Bandit" because of her black eye and the fact that she will run off with just about anything and hide it. She is stock-piling a hoard of toy mice somewhere in our house that we still have yet to discover.